Caution: Being spiritually gifted can be hazardous to your spiritual health. Why? Because your success might lead you to conclude you have God’s approval. The last thing you or I want is to become yesterday’s man or woman. No one wants to be a has-been. No one needs to be that. There are two kinds …
How Leaders With Hidden Sin Can Fake It Until Revealed Read More »
As the pastor of a Primitive Baptist church, my friend Charles Carrin was an ardent cessationist and entrenched five-point Calvinist for many years. He subscribed—as all cessationists do—to what I believe to be an unbiblical view: that God by His own will “ceased” long ago to deal with His people in a direct manner supernaturally. …
When Believers Cease to Believe in the Supernatural Read More »
Dear Dr. MacArthur, I have admired you as an able writer and speaker for years. I have not only read your book Strange Fire but have listened to your talks as well as the panel discussions at your recent conference. I am as Reformed theologically as you are and can say we are on the …
It’s an unthinkable concept—forgiving the One who grants you life—yet countless believers feel betrayed by God. Instead of harboring bitterness toward him, you can learn the truth about walking in total forgiveness. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went. … [And yet …
In May 1984 Billy Graham spoke at Westminster Chapel. His
subject was “loneliness.” He took his text from a strange verse; Psalm 102:6,
in the King James Version, in which the psalmist likens himself to an owl in
the desert. Graham definitely hit a nerve! There are so many people today who
are lonely.
Loneliness is a painful condition, a dreaded state that,
given the choice, most people would do anything to avoid. It is enforced
solitude.
There is obviously a significant difference between enforced
solitude and chosen solitude. Some of us appreciate the bliss of solitude.
Jesus needed to get away from the crowds, and there are some who, by nature,
are loners; they love it that way. My friend Robert Amess calls himself “the
complete loner,” but he is not lonely.
Often we despise the thing that is designed to take us to the next level of blessing and anointing—the chastening of the Lord.
I
remember exactly where I was when the meaning of James 1:2-3 dawned on
me. I wasn’t at an all-night prayer meeting. I wasn’t at the end of a
40-day fast. No, I was at a pizzeria in Kissimmee, Fla., in the summer
of 1979, and I had just lost my temper.
I
had been looking forward to enjoying a pizza from this particular
place. But everything went wrong. First, the pizzas took 45 minutes to
prepare. Then, as I carried them to my motel room through the pouring
rain, they fell out of their wet paper bag into a puddle of water.
DOES GOD EVER ASK HIS SERVANTS
TO WALK WITH HIM IN PLACES THAT ARE UNCOMFORTABLE AND EVEN UNDESIRABLE?
THE SCRIPTURES AND HISTORY TELL US, YES.
One
of the most stunning comments I ever heard, almost a throwaway remark,
came from one of the most famous ministers in the world. He said to me,
“R.T., the more God uses me, the less I am able to enjoy it.”
This
may be incomprehensible to some, but I know exactly what he meant. God
has many ways of ensuring that while we enjoy His blessing, we do not
become conceited.
Unforgiveness says three things to God (hint: none of them good). God is no fan of an unforgiving spirit—at all. Jesus was clear about it: “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, your Father will not forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:15, NKJV). Why does He so hate an unwillingness to forgive?· ·1. It shows …
For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a
righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is
written: “The righteous will live by faith.” —Romans 1:17
It is one thing for us to believe it once and be electrified and be
thrilled, to have our world turned upside down, but quite another to
keep believing it. The devil will come alongside and tell you that it
can’t be true, and he appeals to our natural reasoning. He appeals to
what we know to be true about ourselves, that we are sinners. If he can,
he will bring us right back to our bondage.
Though seemingly impossible, you can forgive—completely—and finally let go of the past I received a heartrending letter from a couple who had heard me teach on the subject of total forgiveness a few years ago. They told me what their son-in-law had done to their daughter and grandchildren. It was an awful story. “Are you saying we …
I can think of nothing worse in the world than for something that God is in to be happening and I not recognize it.
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” -Genesis 28:16
The most wonderful thing that can happen to anybody is for God to turn up. The problem is that we don’t always recognize Him at the time, and we only see later that it was God.
God loves a grateful nation. Just as an individual cannot “out-thank” the Lord-for God pours out His blessing more than ever, so a nation cannot out-thank God either.
Just as those individuals who praised God on Palm Sunday possibly did so selfishly, even ignorantly and for the wrong reasons—and God accepted their praise, so God accepts the praise of a nation that attempts to show gratitude to Him. It does not necessarily matter that every single person who participates in such thanksgiving is a faithful servant of God in his or her private life; God just notices a nation overall that makes any attempt to show gratitude to Him.
Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. … “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel. —Malachi 2:15-16 Here we meet one of the most important things God has said in relation to the family: “I hate divorce.” Why is this so relevant? We are living in …
Perhaps God spoke to you
at a particular time or was present on a particular occasion. At the time, it
didn’t seem as if it was God who was doing the speaking or even if God was
present at all. You underestimated, if not rejected, what He did or what He
said. Only years later did it become clear to you that you had failed to
recognize His presence.
I remember many years ago, when Louise and I had
moved away from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for only 18 months, we came back and
found that Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church had been started. Before we went
away, it had been a vacant lot with a big sign on it that read, “Future home of
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.” That sign just stayed there month after month
for a couple years. We wondered: What is happening here? When will that
church start?
Since forgiveness is a choice, what is the next step? If we are persuaded that it is right and have decided to do it (and not look back), what next? 1. Make the deliberate and irrevocable choice not to tell anyone what they did.You may need to do this for therapeutic reasons, but only to …
